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Subtle Citation, Allusion, and Translation in the Hebrew Bible

Edited by

Ziony Zevit [+–]

American Jewish University

Ziony Zevit is Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at the American Jewish University. He is recognized for his publications in Hebrew language and linguistics and Israelite religion. He has served on several editorial boards–BASOR, CBQ, HAR, HS– was Editor-in-Chief of Hebrew Studies for seven years, and is a past president of National Association of Professors of Hebrew. Zevit is the co-editor of Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew (2012) and his most recent book What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? was published in 2013. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Lady Davis Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. During the 2013-14 academic year Zevit served as Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor at the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research.

Biblicists have long been aware that some compositions in the Bible cite and allude to other compositions. At times these practices are obvious; often, however, they are not. Essays in this volume focus on subtle, not-so-obvious, unrecognized cases of citation and allusion as well as on unrecognized ‘translations’ from other languages. Individual authors address unapparent cases and the methodological considerations on which their status as ‘genuine’ can be established. The essays in this volume are significant because of the methodological considerations and cautions that they describe and the varied texts that they analyze. Biblicists drawing on insights from this book will be able to provide thicker descriptions of Israelite literature and literacy and to construct relative chronologies of biblical compositions with greater accuracy than has been possible until now.

Table of Contents

Ziony Zevit is Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at the American Jewish University. He is recognized for his publications in Hebrew language and linguistics and Israelite religion. He has served on several editorial boards–BASOR, CBQ, HAR, HS– was Editor-in-Chief of Hebrew Studies for seven years, and is a past president of National Association of Professors of Hebrew. Zevit is the co-editor of Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew (2012) and his most recent book What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? was published in 2013. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Lady Davis Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. During the 2013-14 academic year Zevit served as Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor at the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research.

In his introduction to the volume, ZZ begins by exploring the confusion that ensues when allusions are made to a statement by Emily Dickinson by individuals unfamiliar with both the literary context of her observation as well as with the original text (in context) to which she referred. It goes on to consider the fuzzy semantics of allusion, the problems occasioned by its seeming clarity, and notes alternative terms proposed to replace it. The chapter also explores the intended audiences, modern and ancient, of allusions, citations, and translations. Finally it ventures hypotheses concerning the conservative social and language settings within which literature was created and disseminated in ancient Israel and their implications for determining the reality of allusions in extant Israelite literature.

JRK grapples with questions about (1) the role shared language should play in identifying literary allusions of historical consequence and (2) the role of the judgment of the reader. The chapter critiques practices in current biblical studies used to determine literary allusions. He proposes alternative methods drawing on insights from literary theory.

In this chapter, DMC reflects on current methods and criteria used to establish that a receptor biblical text draws from another biblical source text. He then extends the discussion to evaluate and caution against misusing criteria that are promising when the hypothesized source texts are not biblical.

Exploring Hittite archives controlled by the same dynasty for almost five centuries, AT describes what happened to Mesopotamian texts in Akkadian when adopted for Hittite use and adapted for Hittite sensibilities. Since multiple copies of translated texts were found in these archives, AT is able to illustrate how scribes managed different types of texts as they translated, edited, rewrote, and recopied them for Hittite consumption. She then explores how insights from her survey may be applied to biblical literature.

In a suggestive rather than comprehensive chapter focused sharply on method, MZB studies how allusions to Torah may be identified in selected exilic and post-exilic psalms. He proposes that allusions may be recognized even when their wording is not identical to their source or their description of an event deviates from the extant text; moreover, he points out that allusions to the redacted Pentateuch as well as to individual P and non-P sources may be recognized.

In this chapter, JML responds to the following question: Can subtle allusions be identified in the absence of shared, distinctive terminology? He proposes that depending on the nature of the younger and older texts, sometimes the answer may be positive. He proposes that narrative tracking, a process in which one text alludes to another by mimicking its narrative structure, may be discerned and, thereby, subtle allusions recognized.

Studies of literary allusions often presuppose (1), that authors of the young compositions were familiar with the older texts to which they alluded, and (2), that it was necessary that readers of the young compositions be familiar with the old text and understand the allusions in order to comprehend the young text. In this chapter, JSB polemicises against these assumptions forcefully. He interweaves strong, text-based arguments and provides logical analysis illustrating that (1) was not a necessary condition for an allusion to be made and that the argument for the necessity of familiarity in (2) is incorrect.

MAS understands intertextual as referring to the citation or allusion of one biblical text to other biblical texts, and to the dynamic interplay—as perceived by author and/or reader— between its meaning in its immediate literary context, and its meaning in relation to its broader literary world. On this basis MAS illustrates how Isa 60-62 can be explained in terms of its context in Trito-Isaiah and other post-exilic texts, and its having been embedded in Deutero-Isaiah and Proto-Isaiah.

The question that ELG addresses is whether sufficient data remain, after being subject to stringent methodological analyses of criteria such as genre, linguistics, socio-historical connections, to claim that Job has a direct acquaintance with Babylonian texts concerning the pious sufferer. His chapter illustrates how the methodological analysis works in the case of Job and demonstrates the types of conclusions that it allows.

DPW explores aspects of the methodology used to determine dependence of one text on another. In this chapter, he reconsiders his contention that the Covenant Code is dependent on the Laws of Hammurabi (=Inventing God’s Law, Oxford, 2009) in view of criticisms raised against it, focusing on methodological criteria, their assumptions, and their implications.

Peter Machinist is Hancock Research Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University. His work lies in the intellectual and cultural history of the ancient Near East, with particular attention to Israel and Mesopotamia. Among his publications are Letters from Priests to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (co-edited with Steven Cole, 1998), and articles including: ‘How Gods Die, Biblically and Otherwise: A Problem of Cosmic Restructuring’ (2011); ‘Cities and Ideology: The Case of Assur in the Neo-Assyrian Period’ (2016); and ‘“Ah, Assyria…” (Isaiah 10:5ff.): Isaiah’s Assyrian Polemic Revisited’ (2016).

PM provides extensive discussions of four, well-known cases of textual referencing that involve connections between biblical texts or expressions and literary and linguistic phenomena outside the Bible in Canaanite and Mesopotamian literary materials. His chapter focuses on developing criteria that enable scholars to respond to the following question: How do we know that we such references and, when connections can be established, that the references are deliberate?

The Bible itself (1 Ki 5:9-12) suggests that Israelite literati were familiar with Egyptian wisdom texts, and strong claims have been made that Prov 22:17-23:11 is derived from The Instruction of Amenemope by a combination of translation and revision. In this chapter, MVF considers objections to this claim and then provides additional insights that account for the objections even as they strengthen the case for literary dependence.

Ziony Zevit is Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at the American Jewish University. He is recognized for his publications in Hebrew language and linguistics and Israelite religion. He has served on several editorial boards–BASOR, CBQ, HAR, HS– was Editor-in-Chief of Hebrew Studies for seven years, and is a past president of National Association of Professors of Hebrew. Zevit is the co-editor of Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew (2012) and his most recent book What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? was published in 2013. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Lady Davis Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. During the 2013-14 academic year Zevit served as Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor at the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research.

Biblicists have long been aware that some compositions in the Bible cite and allude to other compositions. At times these practices are obvious; often, however, they are not. Essays in this volume focus on subtle, not-so-obvious, unrecognized cases of citation and allusion as well as on unrecognized ‘translations’ from other languages and references to motifs in the plastic arts. Individual authors address unapparent cases and the methodological considerations on which their status as ‘genuine’ can be established. The essays in this volume are significant because of the methodological considerations and cautions that they describe and the varied texts that they analyze. Biblicists drawing on insights from this book will be able to provide thicker descriptions of Israelite literature and literacy and to construct relative chronologies of biblical compositions with greater accuracy than has been possible until now.

Ziony Zevit is Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at the American Jewish University. He is recognized for his publications in Hebrew language and linguistics and Israelite religion. He has served on several editorial boards–BASOR, CBQ, HAR, HS– was Editor-in-Chief of Hebrew Studies for seven years, and is a past president of National Association of Professors of Hebrew. Zevit is the co-editor of Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew (2012) and his most recent book What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? was published in 2013. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Lady Davis Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. During the 2013-14 academic year Zevit served as Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor at the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research.

Biblicists have long been aware that some compositions in the Bible cite and allude to other compositions. At times these practices are obvious; often, however, they are not. Essays in this volume focus on subtle, not-so-obvious, unrecognized cases of citation and allusion as well as on unrecognized ‘translations’ from other languages and references to motifs in the plastic arts. Individual authors address unapparent cases and the methodological considerations on which their status as ‘genuine’ can be established. The essays in this volume are significant because of the methodological considerations and cautions that they describe and the varied texts that they analyze. Biblicists drawing on insights from this book will be able to provide thicker descriptions of Israelite literature and literacy and to construct relative chronologies of biblical compositions with greater accuracy than has been possible until now.

Ziony Zevit is Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at the American Jewish University. He is recognized for his publications in Hebrew language and linguistics and Israelite religion. He has served on several editorial boards–BASOR, CBQ, HAR, HS– was Editor-in-Chief of Hebrew Studies for seven years, and is a past president of National Association of Professors of Hebrew. Zevit is the co-editor of Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew (2012) and his most recent book What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? was published in 2013. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Lady Davis Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. During the 2013-14 academic year Zevit served as Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor at the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research.

Biblicists have long been aware that some compositions in the Bible cite and allude to other compositions. At times these practices are obvious; often, however, they are not. Essays in this volume focus on subtle, not-so-obvious, unrecognized cases of citation and allusion as well as on unrecognized ‘translations’ from other languages and references to motifs in the plastic arts. Individual authors address unapparent cases and the methodological considerations on which their status as ‘genuine’ can be established. The essays in this volume are significant because of the methodological considerations and cautions that they describe and the varied texts that they analyze. Biblicists drawing on insights from this book will be able to provide thicker descriptions of Israelite literature and literacy and to construct relative chronologies of biblical compositions with greater accuracy than has been possible until now.

Ziony Zevit is Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures at the American Jewish University. He is recognized for his publications in Hebrew language and linguistics and Israelite religion. He has served on several editorial boards–BASOR, CBQ, HAR, HS– was Editor-in-Chief of Hebrew Studies for seven years, and is a past president of National Association of Professors of Hebrew. Zevit is the co-editor of Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew (2012) and his most recent book What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? was published in 2013. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, Lady Davis Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. During the 2013-14 academic year Zevit served as Seymour Gitin Distinguished Professor at the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research.

Biblicists have long been aware that some compositions in the Bible cite and allude to other compositions. At times these practices are obvious; often, however, they are not. Essays in this volume focus on subtle, not-so-obvious, unrecognized cases of citation and allusion as well as on unrecognized ‘translations’ from other languages and references to motifs in the plastic arts. Individual authors address unapparent cases and the methodological considerations on which their status as ‘genuine’ can be established. The essays in this volume are significant because of the methodological considerations and cautions that they describe and the varied texts that they analyze. Biblicists drawing on insights from this book will be able to provide thicker descriptions of Israelite literature and literacy and to construct relative chronologies of biblical compositions with greater accuracy than has been possible until now.

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